Journalists at work in China: Tibet and Beijing edition

China media analysts are looking to two significant events
to shape coverage this month: The anniversary of a failed uprising in Tibet,
and the annual meetings of China's top political bodies, the National People's
Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in Beijing.
Journalists at work in both areas attracted coverage of their own today--but from
vastly different angles.

California-based website China
Digital Times describes foreign journalists defying restrictions to
enter a Tibetan town in far-western Sichuan under information lockdown. CPJ has
been reporting on increased censorship
this year in ethnic minority regions, and renewed pressure on local bloggers.
Foreign news outlets, meanwhile, are simply barred
from the sensitive areas.

A few international news outlets have overcome these
barriers. The
Associated Press published this report on March 1:

An Associated Press reporter managed to get through several
checkpoints along the road leading to Aba, for a rare glimpse of a town that
has been under lockdown for more than three years, as well as an apparent
uptick in security this week.

"I'm in this strange position because there are security
personnel everywhere," the U.K. Guardian's
Jonathan Watts said to camera in February.
"If I just raise my head I'll be spotted...and I expect I would soon be picked up
and taken away." That expectation was not unfounded. Sky News' Holly Williams described
what happened after her team entered the forbidden region:

After leaving Aba the Sky News crew was detained by police
who forcibly searched bags and deleted files from an audio recording device. They
temporarily confiscated a computer and camera, threatened to revoke Chinese
visas and then followed the car for 300 kilometers (187 miles).

Far from minimizing coverage, heavy-handed security measures
are turning censorship in this restricted region into an even bigger story.

So what of the two political meetings? Some discussion of
political reform has taken place in the domestic media, as the Hong Kong
University-based China Media
Project reports. But a number of
local news outlets look for less controversial topics during the politically
sensitive period around the sessions. As The
Atlantic magazine's James
Fallows points out, domestic state newspaper The People's Daily has also chosen to watch the media at work under
highly pressurized conditions. This time, however, it's with a slideshow under the heading, "Beautiful Female Journalists at the Two
Sessions."

Madeline Earp is senior researcher for CPJ’s Asia Program. She has studied Mandarin in China and Taiwan, and graduated with a master’s in East Asian studies from Harvard. Follow her on Twitter @cpjasia and Facebook @ CPJ Asia Desk.